Hunter's Moon, Chuck Logan [i am reading a book TXT] 📗

lose sight of the car. Bud carried two shovels. One was a big snow scoop, the other was a surplus army entrenching tool. Harry took the

HUNTER’S MOON / 19

bigger shovel and began dragging snow away from the packed wheels. Bud worked next to him with the smaller one. In minutes, Bud was gasping for breath.

Bud got behind the wheel. Harry tried pushing. The Jeep threw gravel but did not move except to settle deeper.

“Shit,” yelled Bud. “We almost made it. I’ll bet you we could walk it. We got the gear. We could put on the snowmobile suits. The snowshoes. Jesse’ll say we’re weather wimps.”

“Uh-uh. Keep digging. Put something under the wheels.”

“Warm up first,” said Bud. Back inside, they turned on the heater and smoked a cigarette in silence. Harry switched the lights on.

“Wait,” said Bud. “Turn ’em off again.”

Harry turned them off. A flicker of light up ahead. A pattern.

Harry flashed the lights three times. The flicker came back. Three times.

“The cavalry to the rescue,” said Bud, more animated the closer he got to home.

The blue monster truck that trundled from the wall of snow had jacked-up suspension, monolith tires, roll bars, decks of running lights, a broad snow blade, and a winch for tusks. Two people sat up high in the brightly lit interior.

The truck stopped ten feet away and the two people got out. The driver resembled a ponytailed Abe Lincoln come back as a middle-aged Hell’s Angel.

“That’s Jay Cox,” said Bud. “He’s not as rough as he looks.”

Harry took in the leather-patched denim and the jut of the scar-lumped face and wasn’t so sure. Cox hailed from the white backwoods tribe that burned leaded gasoline and carried their young full term in a grease pit and delivered them by chain-hoist and suckled them on a sharp stick.

The girl danced into the headlight like a wild spark from the storm, agile and lanky, and mocking the cold in tight jeans, tennis shoes, and an old army field jacket that wasn’t zipped. Her high youthful breasts swelled against the flimsy protection of a T-shirt and, defiantly hatless, her long black hair whipped around her face like a cap of tarantulas.

20 / CHUCK LOGAN

Harry cranked down his window. Cox gave a lupine grin and shouted, “You’re crazy to be driving in this, Mr. Maston. But Jes said you’d make a try, so I ran some tracks down to the main highway a couple of times to give you something to go on.” His eyes were silver-gray and as fixed and shiny as two over-tightened bolts.

“Thanks, Jay,” said Bud. “Meet Harry Griffin. Jay Cox.”

Harry hadn’t met a Jay Cox in a while. Guys like him didn’t work at newspapers. The patch on his long-billed black cap was of Snoopy in his aviator hat, hand upraised, middle finger flipping the bird under the stitched caption: FUCK JANE FONDA.

“Howdy,” said Cox, squinting, unable to make out Harry’s features buried in the parka hood. Harry shook a leather hand that was tempered in gasoline and callus and there was definition in the finger muscles. “This is Becky,” said Cox. She poked her head in the window.

“Hi,” she said. Her eyes were dark beneath an inquisitive frown.

Cox yelled over the wind, “I’ll turn my rig around and hook up a tow strap. I got the road into the lodge plowed out.” He tipped his hand to his cap and jogged back to his truck. The girl leaped into the truck bed. Cox manhandled the giant truck in a turn, following the girl’s hand signals. He popped out of the truck, took the thick strap from the girl, disappeared under the grill for a second, fiddled for a moment at his rear hitch, then was back at the window.

“You want me to gun it a little to bust free?” yelled Harry.

“Nah. Just put in the clutch and enjoy the ride.”

After a wild lurch, they careened through the snow drifts. Harry steered off the road, passed a big hand-lettered plywood sign—SITE

OF SNOWSHOE LODGE—and was on a freshly plowed roadbed.

“That the daughter?” asked Harry.

“That’s the daughter.”

“How old is she?”

“Sweet sixteen.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 21

“She doesn’t look sixteen. She looks like a fucking Indian.”

“Got some Metis in her. Jesse’s dad was French and Cree. And maybe a little Gypsy. Mom was Serbian.”

“Who’s the guy?” asked Harry.

“Jack of all trades. Good carpenter. He’s building this new stuff.”

Thick spruce cut the wind and they passed under a poled archway with a pair of snowshoes for a crest. A peaked roof thrust up among the trees, slabbed with cedar shakes, and rugged as a fort. An addition and garage appeared quaint, diluted with gabled gingerbread, next to the massive original timbers. Blond ribcages of new lumber winked in the snow. Cabins under construction. A satellite dish sat in a clearing like a stranded space traveler. Beyond the buildings, Harry sensed the lake.

They ran up the steps into shelter. Cox retrieved his tow strap and joined them and Bud handed him a folded bill. He pocketed it quickly with a shrug. A surreptitious smirk zigzagged between Becky and Cox as the money changed hands.

“Stay for coffee,” said Bud.

They were on a large, snug mud porch, peeling off gloves, opening their coats, and stamping snow off their boots. Harry shook off the parka hood and Cox got a good look at his face. The tight eyes unscrewed, the hard grin clotted, and the blood drained from Cox’s pitted cheeks.

Jay Cox looked like someone who had lost his place.

5

“C’mon,” said Bud, grinning for the first time, “cup a coffee will warm us up.”

Cox’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he tried to bring up spit. “Naw. Gotta plow out other folks,” he rasped and closed his hands to hide the chewed patches of red meat that 22 / CHUCK LOGAN

rimmed his cuticles. Becky edged over and touched his arm. Cox nervously moved her aside.

“Don’t be bothering Jay, Becky.”

The husky voice brought Harry around: Jesse was a chance you take by firelight or the dark of